Jumping Technique - Nurture or Nature?

[RachelFerd]

Just musing to myself...

These days, having owned some naturally very tidy and athletic jumpers and also some 'scopey' but inherently messy and/or un-careful jumpers, I do not feel that it is possible to make a huge change to the natural technique/care of the horse.

Am I just writing off horses un-necessarily?

How much do you think a horse's technique can be changed? And, a separate question, how much do you think a horse's carefulness can be changed?

These days I think "what's the point in trying to polish a t**d"! But am I wrong?

 

[be positive]

I think improvements can be made but frequently they revert to type when things go wrong, leaving a front leg with the possibility of a rotational fall being the most worrying result and why I like to see a horse lift it's forearm even if it tends to dangle below the knee, I think you can improve the snappyness below the knee more easily but if they jump leaving the forearm low that is far harder to improve and I would not buy one that jumped this way.

Working a horse to improve the technique will put extra miles on the clock which may be detrimental in the long term, far easier on the naturally talented, careful horse that only needs to jump minimally in order to perform, it does depend on where you want to end up but I would not spend time trying to change a horse too much if it is going to event at any level, rider safety is paramount and a watching really poor jumping horse go xc is no fun even at the lower levels, seeing a horse with a snappy technique go round even a tiny course is totally different.

I have had horses in that changed their way of jumping usually more due to overall fitness, improving the flatwork and careful confidence building gridwork than specifically targeting the jump but they have not usually been too bad to start with just young, weak or badly ridden which can cause the problems to develop.

 

[BBH]

I think you can enhance what is already there but no amount of training will produce a Grand Prix horse from something that just isn't made for the job.

 

[TheMule]

Nature is most important but IMO you can destroy a good technique very easily with bad hands and therefore there is a chance of taking a horse with a bad technique and improving it. Strength will help some horses, particularly big/immature ones although you can't change their natural reflex so if they don't snap up the knees it's probably not going to improve much.
Personally though, I'd never bother trying. I know what I like and that's tidy, naturally careful horses who aren't in the habit of pole bashing!

 

[slumdog]

You can't polish a t**d but you can roll one in glitter I agree with what's been said, training does play a big part in it but you can't train a horse to be a trier, they either are or they aren't.

I've just bought a big 7yo 17hh eventer, he's jumped a handful of BE90s. He is a bit like a gangly teenager in that awkward way big young horses are sometimes so hopefully he'll grow into himself. He's a machine XC and really tries his heart out so he has scope, he is just a bit like bambi on ice when he's showjumping. However newcomers is big enough for me so Scott Brash doesn't need to worry about us yet lol

 

[RachelFerd]

I think you touch on it there with 'natural reflex' TheMule. My old event horse might not have been the most scopey or talented, but he was wonderfully safe across country because his natural reflex was to snap his hooves right up onto his forearm, he would never ever hit something in front, even though he didn't always make a classic bascule.

Current horse makes the most wonderful bascule over nearly everything, occasionally has a dangle in front, but the forearm is high and he has improved in his neatness with increasing height of the fences. Still inclined to use a massive jump rather than be really snappy.

However, the way he makes a shape has meant that when riding other horses (and through work, I end up jumping a lot of TBs) I just think to myself 'why bother?' either they feel like they get no height, are messy, or don't have the basic ability to keep themselves safe and upright over a jump. I just now think 'why would you bother?'

Having tolerated eventing this for a while...

Have learnt my lesson and wouldn't try again!

 

[TheMule]

Your grey boys are both fabulous!
I do wonder sometimes why people are bothering when they come out of a BE90 having played skittles in the ring!

 

[be positive]

The greys both show a really good technique but the bay has the dreaded forearm that fails to come up and will rarely improve.
I agree with TheMule if a horse cannot get round 90 sj they are never going to be worth continuing with but are the riders fully aware of the issue or do they just think the horse is a bit careless???

 

[TGM]

I think there is more to carefulness than just foreleg technique though, they need to have a careful mental approach as well. Of the two horses we have, the one with the best foreleg technique is actually the more careless of the two and much more likely to touch a fence - he just knows he has to get to the other side and doesn't always care whether he hits the fence or not. Whereas, the other horse looks a bit like the bay over smaller jumps (although brings his forelegs up much better the higher the fences go) - however, he normally hates to touch a pole and also has quite a clever brain and plenty of power and is actually the more careful of the two.

I do think training can affect the mental attitude to carefulness over the fence - some riders can be so forceful in their determination to never let their horse refuse, that the horse becomes desperate just to jump the obstacle whether it involves clobbering it or not, which is obviously rather dangerous if you are tackling solid fences.

 

[TGM]

This shows the horse mentioned over a 90 fence:



but looking much neater, although not textbook, over a larger fence:

 

[RachelFerd]

Ok, so question 3... related to TGMs post above. Do you think the height one chooses to school over can hinder or develop a good jumping technique? If one wants to create correct reflexes and muscle memory for good technique, there must be an optimum height for each individual horse to ensure they are jumping properly rather than being sloppy.

I am lucky, mine will jump 2' in the same way he will jump 4'. But in the case of the horse above, I am thinking you wouldn't want to mess around jumping things that didn't encourage him to jump in a neater, more correct, way?

I guess what I am saying, is that, is the dumbing down of eventing at lower and lower levels actually encouraging horses to jump WORSE than before?

 

[Lanky Loll]

It's not just eventing that's being dumbed down
Mine is a gangly 17hh TB. She raced over hurdles and for preference will belt flat out at the fence and hurdle it standing off a mile with fairly typical dangly lower leg and won't really try and lift the upper front leg until the fences get up a bit - ask her to jump 2ft and she's far more likely to make a hash of it than 3ft. Although she does give you the most incredible feeling of flight through the air She tended to just jump bigger as the fences got up rather than neater.

Over the last 3 months we've been having regular lessons with our local BS trainer who luckily for us is 5minutes hack down the road. Her technique (and mine because I'm out of practice) has changed immensely. She is slower, I can actually get her deep to a fence or even on the spot rather than (as my trainer puts it) being on a "hospital stride" which was our default before. With lots of grid work and canter poles she's become much neater and is really making a shape - the jump that is there isn't huge by any means but she's more than capable of jumping newcomers / eventing up to novice (even if I'm not!) and this is really starting to show now as she properly snaps up in front. But she's still careless over lower fences and inclined to rush if they're too small even in a grid - it really takes a bit of height to back her off and get her to work properly and I doubt that will ever really change.

 

[be positive]

Ok, so question 3... related to TGMs post above. Do you think the height one chooses to school over can hinder or develop a good jumping technique? If one wants to create correct reflexes and muscle memory for good technique, there must be an optimum height for each individual horse to ensure they are jumping properly rather than being sloppy.

I am lucky, mine will jump 2' in the same way he will jump 4'. But in the case of the horse above, I am thinking you wouldn't want to mess around jumping things that didn't encourage him to jump in a neater, more correct, way?

I guess what I am saying, is that, is the dumbing down of eventing at lower and lower levels actually encouraging horses to jump WORSE than before?

I think you have to be very careful what you do with a horse with poor technique, once you know whether it is due to laziness or actual inability to do any better, then work on producing the best jump as often as you can always aiming to get correct jumps in every schooling session, if down to laziness, can't be bothered because the jump is small it is less risky than trying to change a horse than really can't lift up.

In answer to whether the dumbing down is encouraging poor jumping, I don't think it is as such but what it does is allow those with poor techniques to get onto the ladder eventing which in the old days, starting at novice, you would not have even bothered to try with, then if they have some success people that are less experienced will see them and think that jumping in such a way is acceptable and be happy to buy one that does the same, trainers need to be picking up earlier that work must be done not just on the getting from a to b but on how they get there.

 

[Apercrumbie]

It's not just eventing that's being dumbed down
Mine is a gangly 17hh TB. She raced over hurdles and for preference will belt flat out at the fence and hurdle it standing off a mile with fairly typical dangly lower leg and won't really try and lift the upper front leg until the fences get up a bit - ask her to jump 2ft and she's far more likely to make a hash of it than 3ft. Although she does give you the most incredible feeling of flight through the air She tended to just jump bigger as the fences got up rather than neater.

Over the last 3 months we've been having regular lessons with our local BS trainer who luckily for us is 5minutes hack down the road. Her technique (and mine because I'm out of practice) has changed immensely. She is slower, I can actually get her deep to a fence or even on the spot rather than (as my trainer puts it) being on a "hospital stride" which was our default before. With lots of grid work and canter poles she's become much neater and is really making a shape - the jump that is there isn't huge by any means but she's more than capable of jumping newcomers / eventing up to novice (even if I'm not!) and this is really starting to show now as she properly snaps up in front. But she's still careless over lower fences and inclined to rush if they're too small even in a grid - it really takes a bit of height to back her off and get her to work properly and I doubt that will ever really change.

This is very true - with some horses you do need a bigger fence to make them back off and 'think' about the question. I remember that my first pony had impeccable jumping technique from 2'6 upwards - real textbook snappy legs with a good shape. Anything smaller she would rush and fling herself over which resulted in both of us getting frustrated with each other. If she was in a good mood we could jump 2'3 fine, but on other days I just didn't bother jumping less as it made her worse. Obviously I was a child, so maybe a more mature rider could have done more, but at the end of the day, most of us on here are amateurs and can't help our horses as much as pros can.

I know some people use v poles and a poles to help jumping technique - has anyone on here had any success with these?

 

[Cabaret]

I think there is more to carefulness than just foreleg technique though, they need to have a careful mental approach as well.

This. I believe that some horses, no matter what you do, will not be careful. There was one at the yard for a while who had tons of power, and tried as we could, he just didn't care to leave the jumps up and would slug out rails from 1.0m-1.30m and you'd never get around with anything less than 12 faults, no matter what the height. He is now a lovely dressage horse.

Horses need to want to be careful. To answer your question OP, any horse that doesn't have that natural desire (depending on what you want to do of course), I wouldn't hesitate to "write off" as you put it. I think you can change a horse's front end technique to a point through suppling and strenghtening flatwork and extensive gymnastic work, but the hind end technique, IME, is almost unchangeable. If it doesn't have the desire to be careful, and some gymnastic work doesn't improve it, then you may end up with the horse I described.

 

[chestnut cob]

I know some people use v poles and a poles to help jumping technique - has anyone on here had any success with these?

Yes, but then again I have a careful, tidy horse anyway. He can sometimes get a bit careless/ lazy over SJ poles when he's recently been XC so we use V poles to get him to snap up better. They always work and we usually only need to use them a couple of times then can take them away and he's perfect. But as I say, he is very tidy anyway and in general I'm amazed that he doesn't knock himself out with his knees as he snaps up so well. So I suppose the attitude is different to a horse that doesn't really care about leaving up the fences, because mostly he is careful and is just getting a little reminder.

 

[slumdog]

It's not just eventing that's being dumbed down
Mine is a gangly 17hh TB. She raced over hurdles and for preference will belt flat out at the fence and hurdle it standing off a mile with fairly typical dangly lower leg and won't really try and lift the upper front leg until the fences get up a bit - ask her to jump 2ft and she's far more likely to make a hash of it than 3ft. Although she does give you the most incredible feeling of flight through the air She tended to just jump bigger as the fences got up rather than neater.

Over the last 3 months we've been having regular lessons with our local BS trainer who luckily for us is 5minutes hack down the road. Her technique (and mine because I'm out of practice) has changed immensely. She is slower, I can actually get her deep to a fence or even on the spot rather than (as my trainer puts it) being on a "hospital stride" which was our default before. With lots of grid work and canter poles she's become much neater and is really making a shape - the jump that is there isn't huge by any means but she's more than capable of jumping newcomers / eventing up to novice (even if I'm not!) and this is really starting to show now as she properly snaps up in front. But she's still careless over lower fences and inclined to rush if they're too small even in a grid - it really takes a bit of height to back her off and get her to work properly and I doubt that will ever really change.

This is exactly what I meant about my new one, he's a lanky 17hh tb and also raced over hurdles. He's a XC machine and has team chased and jumped BE90 so I'm hoping I can improve his technique showjumping like you have